Dems mine Texas for 2012 cash

Deep in the heart of Republican Texas, Democrats have rediscovered an ATM.

It’s stocked with contributions not only from old-school Texans like former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, who can remember the days when Lyndon B. Johnson and Sam Rayburn cast the biggest political shadows in the state, but also from a younger generation of trial lawyers and entrepreneurs who have moved into the cities — Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and, of course, Austin — from bluer turf around the country.

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National Democrats facing tough races in 2012 have been flocking to the Lone Star State to cash in. So far, Sen. Claire McCaskill has raised about $150,000 from Texans for her 2012 reelection bid, and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown took in about $140,000. Up-and-comers have also tapped into the Texas well: Massachusetts liberal Elizabeth Warren got $100,000 for her faceoff with Sen. Scott Brown in a closely watched race.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also has the PIN: He took $820,000 from Texans in 2009 and ’10 as he fought for electoral survival in Nevada. New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez , a former Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman running for reelection this year, raised about $440,000 in the Lone Star State in 2011 alone.

House members, too, have figured out that they can fund campaigns back home by drilling for dollars in Texas: Rep. Bruce Braley, an Iowa Democrat, collected just short of $300,000 in Texas between 2005 and 2011, and then-Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar of Minnesota hauled in nearly twice as much money over a two-year period from a Mexican-border district than he did from his own Canadian-border district.

A new POLITICO analysis of contributions from 2001 through 2011 shows that Democrats increasingly have turned to Texas to fund House and Senate campaigns across the country as they have learned that eager donors await them in a state where Republicans dominate at the polls and where there’s hope of a Democratic resurgence at home. There’s a dip in money raised in 2012, due in part to Democrats losing the House majority — but overall there’s been a structural shift in how willing Texan Democrats are to open their wallets.